Of Mice and Men Summary

Overview Summary of the NovelBefore reporting for work, migrant workers George Milton and Lennie Small spend the night on a peaceful riverbank. For the second time, George has to take away a dead mouse that Lennie has been petting. He consoles Lennie by recounting the story of their dream farm where Lennie will tend rabbits.

Before retiring, George tells Lennie to remember this place by the river, because if Lennie ever gets into trouble he must return here and hide in the brush until George comes for him.

Friday, in the ranch’s bunkhouse, the men meet Candy, the old, crippled swamper; the boss’s arrogant son, Curley, who is always ready to fight; and Curley’s new wife, who is pretty and flirtatious.

Also entering the bunkhouse are Slim, an experienced and respected work-team leader, and Carlson, a ranch hand. Both men are friendly and welcome George and Lennie to the ranch.

Friday night, after a half day’s work, Lennie goes to the barn to visit the puppy Slim has given him. Back in the bunkhouse, George confesses to a sympathetic Slim that they left their previous job because Lennie was accused of attacking a girl.

Later that evening, when Candy’s dog, lame and blind with age, enters the bunkhouse, Carlson suggests that Candy shoot it to put it out of its misery. Candy reluctantly agrees to allow Carlson to shoot the dog with his Luger pistol. Though deeply saddened at the death of his longtime companion, Candy says later that he should have shot his dog himself, instead of letting a stranger do it.

Sitting in the bunkhouse, George and Lennie again talk of their dream farm. Listening quietly, old Candy offers his life’s savings, half of the money they will need to buy the farm, if he can become a partner in their dream.

Curley and Slim return to the bunkhouse, arguing about Curley’s wife. Curley sees Lennie smiling and accuses Lennie of laughing at him. He punches Lennie without retaliation. When George finally gives the word, though, Lennie catches Curley’s hand and crushes it.

Saturday night, while the others are in town, Lennie wanders into Crooks’s room, where Crooks tells Lennie of his loneliness. After Candy joins them, Curley’s wife comes in. When they try to get her to leave, she professes her own loneliness and makes a deliberate attempt to talk to Lennie, but she is driven away by the return of the other ranch hands.

The next day, Sunday, Lennie returns to the barn to pet his puppy. Curley’s wife comes in, talks to Lennie, and lets him caress her hair. When she tries to make him stop, he panics and accidentally breaks her neck. Realizing she is dead, Lennie flees.

Candy and George discover the body of Curley’s wife, and they know the other men will want Lennie lynched. As the men are preparing a search party, Carlson announces that his gun is missing. In spite of George’s insistence that Lennie would never kill on purpose, the men want Lennie shot on sight.

At the riverbank awaiting George, Lennie is confronted with images of his dead aunt and a giant rabbit, both chastising him for disappointing George. When George arrives, he comforts his friend. As he hears the others nearing, he helps Lennie imagine, for the last time, their dream farm. With great difficulty, he places Carlson’s revolver at the back of Lennie’s head and pulls the trigger.

Only Slim understands what has happened. He comforts George and reassures him that this was what he had to do.

Estimated Reading Time

Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck’s short novels. It is only six chapters long, and about one hundred pages. It reads rather quickly, and it should take the average reader fewer than four hours to complete.

The novel can be divided into four sections, corresponding to the four days entailed in the plot, with each section taking place on a different day. Chapter 1 takes place on the Thursday night the men spend by the river. Chapters 2 and 3 cover Friday. Chapter 4 occurs on Saturday night. Chapters 5 and 6 contain the events of Sunday.

Was George and Lennie's Dream Realistic?

George and Lennie share the dream of owning their own little farmhouse with a few acres of land. When Candy offers to contribute three hundred dollars, the dream seems within realization. George even sends the sellers a down payment on the property. But the biggest problem with owning a little subsistence farm is that no matter how hard they worked on it, all they could produce would be food. They could keep a cow and have milk, butter, buttermilk, cream, and maybe cheese. They could keep many chickens and have plenty of eggs as well as chickens to eat. And they could keep those rabbits Lennie is so anxious to care for. They could grow almost any kinds of vegetables in the blessed California climate and the rich California soil. And they could have many different kinds of fruit trees. But they would not have a dime of real money. They would be what used to be called "dirt poor." It is very hard to raise money in the country, and it was much harder during the Great Depression. All the farmers wanted to sell milk, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. They built roadside stands and tried to raise a little money by selling food to motorists. But there weren't that many motorists in those days, and the competition was fierce. If George and Lennie took some of their produce into the nearest town, they might get more money, but for that they would need a truck. They would have no money to buy a truck or to pay for gasoline. The house would undoubtedly be old. They couldn't afford to paint it or to buy anything for repairs, such as new roofing materials. They would need to buy, among other things, seeds, fertilizer, coffee, sugar, flour, and wood for their wood-burning stove. And what about clothing? They could order shoes, flannel shirts, socks, underwear, and overalls from the Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalogs, but where would they get the money? The only really feasible option would be to pick fruit during the season, beginning around April and ending around October. The apricots come in early, the grapes come in late. But they would need to get around the big state, which would mean buying an old car or truck. Candy could stay behind to look after the chickens and animals. George and Lennie would be back doing itinerant agricultural work for a good part of the year. And we all know how little the growers were paying fruit pickers in those days if we have read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath or seen the movie version of that novel. They would have to "follow the crops" all up and down California. And they would be competing with thousands of other men for the jobs.

Their home life would not be like a pleasant dream. There would be three men in dirty overalls working, eating, and sleeping. No entertainment, except possibly a radio, which they would have to buy. And they would have to pay for the electricity to play the radio, assuming electricity was even available where they lived. Otherwise they would have to use kerosene lamps for lighting.

At one time in America ninety-five percent of the people lived on subsistence farms. But at least there were families. There were women to do the cooking and children to raise. Three men living in a shack would have no purpose in life and nothing to make their lives pleasant and comfortable. They couldn't even afford to buy whiskey to get drunk. They would run out of things to talk about. Lennie might be happy with his rabbits, but he is not a great conversationalist. They couldn't even read books because all three of them are only semi-literate. In time, if they stuck it out, they would be regarded as eccentric wretches, like some of the characters in Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road. George would have the responsibility of managing everything. Candy would become more and more of a burden as he aged, and in time he would be completely useless.

Subsistence farms are disappearing all over America, along with all small farming operations. Agribusiness is taking over. The ranch where George and Lennie were working is an early example of single-crop agribusiness. They still used wagons and teams of horses, but by now the heavy work is all done by mechanical monstrosities, some of which are operated by robots. Small towns are disappearing throughout middle America, while in California much of the rich land is being covered with look-alike suburban houses. George and Lennie's dream was a dead-end dream.